03-26-2014, 07:39 PM | #21 | |
Join Date: Jul 2007
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
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03-26-2014, 07:40 PM | #22 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
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...has Beta Hydri being barely more massive than the Sun. It won't even make a decent Red Giant. If you want a future supernova you need to go here.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antares ....and even at 15-18 solar masses Antares won't make a top rank boom. It is the closes tone I know of and the Wiki article implies the same. It's also 550 ly distant which is about the same distance of the Geminga pulsar. That's a supernova remnant from about 30,000 years ago. No really big mass extinctions tied to that time period. A parallel Earth with a supernova candidate close enough to be really dangerous is going to be highly variant in terms of local astronomy. Gurps Space 4e puts the sort of Type O stars you need at 1 in 3,000,000 in our neighborhood.
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Fred Brackin |
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03-26-2014, 07:53 PM | #23 | |
Join Date: Jul 2007
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
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(The numbers don't work, but they do drag in some Weird Physics later on to help explain it.) |
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03-26-2014, 07:53 PM | #24 |
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Join Date: Oct 2007
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
So a supernova is pretty much out, without variant astronomy.
(At least we've reduced the number of things to worry about by one...)
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Rob Kelk “Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.” – Bernard Baruch, Deming (New Mexico) Headlight, 6 January 1950 No longer reading these forums regularly. |
03-26-2014, 07:54 PM | #25 | |
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Join Date: Oct 2007
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
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Rob Kelk “Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.” – Bernard Baruch, Deming (New Mexico) Headlight, 6 January 1950 No longer reading these forums regularly. |
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03-26-2014, 08:12 PM | #26 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
One could always leave the exact source of the radiation burst undetermined over the course of the game.
Without knowing what caused it, players might rationally feel that it could happen again at any moment. The handful of astronomers studying the alternate might each have their own idea, and thus divide the limited research resources.
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Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check. |
03-26-2014, 08:32 PM | #27 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
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That's why I said physically improbable. Getting a neutrino flux like that anywhere that isn't simultaneously being destroyed in other ways would be really bizarre. But it would let you deliver lethal radiation poisoning to the entire Earth biosphere simultaneously.
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
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03-26-2014, 09:43 PM | #28 |
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Athens, GA
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
Hmm - alternate means of destroying the ozone layer...solar flares, sudden reversals of the magnetic poles, antimatter meteors, multimegaton nukes in the upper atmosphere, ozone eating alien microbes, am I forgetting anything? No SciFi writers' guild, I wasn't asking you.
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03-26-2014, 09:53 PM | #29 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
A smallish comet full of ozone depleting chemicals is at least possible if rather unlikely.
The scientists of the alternate expecting one type of disaster and get an even worse unexpected one.
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Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check. |
03-26-2014, 10:11 PM | #30 | |
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota, U.S.A.
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
Well according to the Wikipedia article on the Permo-Triassic extinction, widespread ocean anoxia can encourage anaerobic green sulfur bacteria to produce tons of H2S, which damages the ozone if it gets into the atmosphere (besides just generally being toxic).
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I'm liking the "colliding binary neutron stars" idea.
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I have Confused and Clueless. Sometimes I miss sarcasm and humor, or critically fail my Savoir-Faire roll. None of it is intentional. Published GURPS Settings (as of 4/2013 -- I hope to update it someday...) Last edited by Vaevictis Asmadi; 03-26-2014 at 10:19 PM. |
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gamma ray bursts, infinite worlds, lucifer-3, supernova |
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